China to build 'passageway' to South Asia through Tibet

A plan to build a 'passageway' to South Asia through Tibet has been included in China's 14th five-year-plan, reported the state-run media. Xinhua said that Tibet "will be supported" to build än important passageway" opening to South Asia. Concrete plan about this project is not available and it is not yet clear where the "opening" of this passageway would be.

On Friday, Beijing unveiled its next five-year plan, pledging to lift annual research and development spending by more than 7% until 2025, highlighting a commitment to become self-sufficient as the country clashes with the United States and other countries over technology policy.

"We owe our achievements last year to the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core," Li said in an hour-long speech to over 5,000 delegates gathered in the Great Hall of the People, all of them inoculated against COVID-19 with a vaccine made by China's Sinopharm.

However, consumer spending remains constrained, investment growth lacks sustainability, and "the foundation for achieving our country's economic recovery needs to be further consolidated," he said in a speech that mentioned Xi 13 times.

Li set a growth target of more than 6% this year for the world's second-largest economy, seen to be easily achievable, defying expectations that China would refrain from setting a goal given global uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

China grew by 2.3% last year, its weakest in 44 years, but was still the only major economy to expand as it largely vanquished the domestic spread of the novel coronavirus that first emerged in the country in late 2019.

During Friday's parliamentary session, Beijing proposed legislation that would tighten its increasingly authoritarian grip on Hong Kong by making changes to the electoral committee that chooses the city's leader, giving it new power to nominate legislative candidates.

(With agency inputs)